


Waking up Restrained/Shackled/Hanging

by Agib



Series: Whumptober 2020 [1]
Category: Criminal Minds (US TV)
Genre: Angst, Broken Bones, Creepy, Established Relationship, Gen, Graphic Description, Hurt Spencer Reid, Kidnapping, M/M, Protective Derek Morgan, Restraints, Serial Killers, Unsub | Unknown Subject, Whump, Worried Derek Morgan
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-30
Updated: 2020-09-30
Packaged: 2021-03-07 20:55:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,709
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26733970
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Agib/pseuds/Agib
Summary: <3 for my Beta, , and her Ao3:DilaudiddreamsAnd her gorgeous tumblr:@m0rcia
Relationships: Aaron Hotchner & Derek Morgan, Derek Morgan/Spencer Reid, Spencer Reid & The BAU Team
Series: Whumptober 2020 [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1945771
Comments: 17
Kudos: 193
Collections: Whumptober 2020





	Waking up Restrained/Shackled/Hanging

**Author's Note:**

> <3 for my Beta, , and her Ao3: [Dilaudiddreams](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dilaudiddreams/pseuds/dilaudiddreams/works)  
> And her gorgeous tumblr: [@m0rcia](https://m0rcia.tumblr.com/)

He’s perfect. In every imaginable way. 

The contours of his skin, the smooth, sleek arches of his joints and spinal cord. Everything about him is perfect in an indescribable fashion. A work of art, truly. The divots and cures of his collarbone, the delicate nature of his wrists and shoulder blades. One could lay him out across a stone pillar and find him fitting in amongst a lineage of Greek, marble statues. 

He’s delicate in many senses of the word. His frail limbs sprawled listlessly about, and the brush of his lashes against his pale cheek. His lips parted ever so slightly on each exhale, the perfect piece of beauty. His hair, soft and cinnamon resembling. A fragile curl dangles from his temple to form a small ringlet beside his jawline, the only thing sharp and ruthless about his appearance.

“You’re perfect,” sweet, sallow, soft. “Breath-taking.” Honeyed, golden irises with specks of olive blink open in tandem with his words. “So gorgeous,” and with the quickly widening eyes comes the terror, just like all the others.

\----

_There was far too much to realistically cope with. And the sounds –_

_God. The sounds._

_Ripping and tearing and popping._

_No human body should make these sounds._

_He needed to be let down from here._

_Cut me loose, cut me loose. Please, God, let me down._

_It hurts. It hurts so, so much. Too much._

\----

“What the hell are you trying to say, man?”

“Derek, please –” Penelope starts.

“Exactly what the ME told us.” Hotch’s face is set sternly with a frown. He glares right back at Derek, looking severely grave. “See for yourself.” He places the folder of victims’ autopsy reports on the desk the local police chief had provided for them. “Look at the bruising on the wrists and ankles in particular.”

Derek leans in, surveying the array of images while Penelope and JJ wrinkle their noses in displeasure. JJ might be well-acquainted with victimology and crime scene analytic images, but it doesn’t make seeing her teammate in the same vulnerable position any easier.

“The bruising is just around the underside…” Derek notes. “You’re saying they were hung from the ceiling?”

“That’s what I wanted to imply, yes,” Hotch says dully. “They were restrained from a height, which makes sense considering both the profile and the ME reports.”

Derek pauses a moment, taking in the new information and comparing it to the victimology, the injury basis, and the current profile before responding.

“You think our unsub considers himself an artist.” 

Hotch nods solemnly, and Penelope looks between them all frantically as their faces fall in understanding.

“What? What does that mean? Em? Derek? _Hello_?! What does that mean?!”

“It means our unsub is… _connected_ to his work. He’s not going to go down without a fight, and he’ll never give up his ‘art.’”

“Connected to his _victims_. They aren’t his _work_ ,” Derek says sharply. Emily nods, gesturing politely to settle him down. 

“These kinds of arrests are hard to navigate,” Derek explains carefully. Penelope opens and closes her mouth before settling on a watery, unpleasant frown.

“Why would anyone… oh Pence,” she murmurs. JJ pats her wrist gently, nodding on for Hotch to continue with their plan to apprehend.

Derek twists his engagement ring idly around his finger, gnawing at the inside of his cheek as Hotch talks them through a plan.

\----

If you were to ask, yes. 

He does consider himself an artist.

His work is divine, and rare as it comes, what he produces is a masterpiece. He didn’t get to this stage for nothing. He has always let his infatuation with anatomy and the human spirit – which is so flexible and pliant – form the understanding he needed.

He is currently days away from forming his final masterpiece. His _magnum opus_ , if you will.

He’s just not ready quite yet. He needs more hours of sweat and tears put into his creation. He needs his sense of fulfilment and pride. 

Looking upon what he has so far, he _does_ hold self-esteem. It’s magnificent, just not perfect – not _yet_ at least.

Not until his final boy.

Until then, his work remains private, for his eyes only. Others can see when it has been completed.

He knows even now that his final boy will fit into his piece _stunningly_. 

This was why he had chosen to wait agonisingly, watching him back and forth for days on end to learn how he would best suit the masterpiece before him now.

And he will, _perfectly_. Because he is a masterpiece in and of himself. 

He is an extraordinary and stunning creature. Though he is now caught in a position of fruitless escape, he still lays, ripe for the intricate process of melding limbs and joints until they shatter to create something magnificent. Until he becomes a form that will fall so seamlessly into place with the rest of the countless hours of work and intensive labour.

The boy possesses something he doesn’t see often enough among his boys. A particular flicker of something ravenous and persistent, something that screams to fight back and never give up, as hopeless as the attempts seem. 

He is brimming with defiance, those golden irises burning lush green only glare ruthlessly, his form twisting and gnarling in feeble resistance against his restraints.

Though beneath all of this is what he has grown and learned to love, to kindle, and that is the undying centre of _fear_ in their eyes. Whether it be hidden beneath a layer of insolence like this, or raw and unbidden across their features, the fact remains, it is truly addicting to see.

He sees it now, in the hitched movement of the boy’s chest on every inhale. In the way his lips tremor as he dampens them deftly, attempting to find words.

“You – you’re an artist,” the boy manages. His remark hardly attains to support his mask of bravery and rebelliousness. 

He nods truthfully, twisting his own layered rope between two fingers, still watching as the young man attempts to subtly loosen his bindings. 

“You want me – you want… this is your finale, your endgame, isn’t it?”

“That you are,” he answers evenly.

Something in his voice causes the fiery disobedience and non-compliance to water down, tampering out slightly as they make eye contact.

The boy knows he will be dying soon. Only a small sacrifice in the grand scheme of this work, but the finale is arguably the key piece, and the most vital element.

“I’m sure you understand I’ve been keeping tabs. So, you know I have to do this for you, now, don’t you?” He busies himself with folding the cloth around the centre of his thinner ropes, watching with barely contained interest as the boy fumbles for a response.

“I don’t – I never… you ca –” The boy, a known genius, is smart enough to cut himself off.

He approaches slowly, like the boy is a frightened, skittish animal that could merely dash away at a moment’s notice of danger. _Oh how the boy must wish only for that to be the case,_ he thinks to himself.

The hazel eyes widen in shock as he crouches beside him, and what little give on the restraints which exist is taken as he leans forward.

“What’re y –” This time it is not wits which cut the boy off, but the fabric stuffed rope jamming between those two shaky lips and knotting harshly in his set of wavy curls.

Muffled sounds of protest follow, and despite the evident fear so present prior to this action, the boy behind to fight.

And he fights with the useless hope that he will get out of this cellar, or perhaps that a saviour will enter it.

But hope has never been given stay in a place like this.

He knows this feeble optimism will be squandered within good time, so he feels no rush to destroy it just yet. He will let this final boy clutch onto his last remainder of hope for now, as it is his final lifeline.

This cinnamon haired, olive eyed boy may hold onto his faith like a sailor to his lighthouse, like the ocean to its moon. He can ride this foolish dream like a boat with its oars of escapism, like a skydiver freefalling with the knowledge of the safety his parachute holds.

This will not last, so why tear it apart with two hands and several ropes just yet?

\----

“This is insane, this is crazy – it’s going to get him hurt or worse, ki –”

“ _Derek_!”

Hotch snapping at someone by their first name is uncommon enough, but the fear lingering in his own voice is even more so.

“What if he turns around and kills him as soon as I walk inside? You know I can’t – I – I won’t be able to handle that.” Derek’s hands are shaking more than Hotch had hoped as he straps himself into his thinnest Kevlar vest.

“He won’t, you know that,” Hotch says with as much certainty as he can currently manage. “Stick to the profile, which we also know.”

Derek shakes his head disapprovingly, running his fingers along the seams of his vest before reaching to zip his bulkier leather jacket to cover the layer of protection, which has saved his life countless times.

“Everything’s going to be fine. You’re wired, so we’ll hear everything. Backup can get inside just as fast as you can get both of you out, okay?” Emily smooths the mussed portion of her ponytail back, JJ at her side nodding encouragingly.

“He’ll be okay, Morgan,” she promises. “He’s been through worse.”

The point is stale, and the words taste despicable crossing her lips, but they are the truth. Spencer has endured far worse in his line of work and walk of life.

“Yeah,” Derek says gruffly. “Well, he shouldn’t’ve had to.”

\----

Like every other boy, he takes him apart slowly. He studies every degree of movement, each hint of flawless physique. He peels back all layers of the boy’s personality, relishing in the way his struggling dies out, the way he heaves for every breath and crushes his own fingernails into his palms. Every nuance and detail is perfectly catalogued away for his ‘finale,’ his ‘endgame,’ as the boy so eloquently put it.

This last donation will make _everything_ , build the wonderment, create the substance and meaning behind this innovation.

_“You’re perfect.”_

_“Breath-taking.”_

_“So gorgeous.”_

This boy’s body of perfection will become the foreground of his piece. Viewers graced with the presence of his masterpiece will speak of this for eternity.

He cannot sully this boy, though he can roam his hands across fair, ivory skin. The contrast rattles pleasantly in his gut as he idly traces the patterning of small freckles and beauty-spots across his back. 

A small, hushed noise escapes the boy at this traverse of his youthful complexion. His tendons shift and beneath warm, solid palms the muscles ruffle like feathers on a disturbed bird. The sound is strained and uncomfortable, as though the process had already begun.

“You’ve felt nothing of it all, yet,” he reminds him softly. Kindly. 

When he leans forward to survey the nature of the boy’s twisted facial features, he sees the force at which the angular jaw presses teeth down into the spit-soaked cloth buried between his lips.

“Don’t be coy, you’re _fine_.”

Surprisingly enough, a muted sob trickles out into the dense cellar. The boy drops his forehead forward, as though to let it rest against the cool concrete flooring, but the way he is suspended two inches from the ground keeps him from this miniscule comfort.

Mindlessly, he returns to work. His fingers continue to slide across taught muscle, tracing bones and sinew.

“You’re ready now,” he says, making sure to speak loud enough to drown out the continual, forced gasping from beneath the gag.

Though the boy was lean, and held a physically demanding position in his workforce, his muscle mass could nowhere near rival his own. He has spent years hoisting his boys towards the arched ceiling using only a pulley system and thick ropes.

Again, he does the same.

The strangled cries that the movement elicits from the boy are bone-shudderingly pleasant among the quiet of the cellar.

His arms are forcibly suspended upwards, and backward. His smooth, freckle-spotted shoulder blades wrench inwards and pinch together like a pair of torn angel wings.

The ropes binding his wrists tighten as they yank him higher toward the ceiling where they’re attached. He loops this length of rope around the pulley system and leaves the boy suspended to his new height, reaching about his waist when standing.

He approaches the boy, who now stays perfectly still for fear of further aggravating his stretched joints. “There now, I knew you’d be perfect,” he mumbles, running the back of his three middle nails down the newly curved angles of the boy’s back and shoulders which now parody a flightless pigeon’s wings.

He stares lovingly, a grin splitting his face with satisfaction as his free hand runs upwards to tug gently at the rope connecting the boy to the second rafter.

Another small noise escapes him. It sounds vaguely like a protest, but his lips are stuffed, and his rapid breathing dampens anything intelligible. So, like any sane artist would, he tugs the second rope, the hand at the boy’s back pinning him in place.

There is only a decisive second between this movement and the boy’s true agony, which is spent filled with frantic shakes of his head, curls falling in patterns down across the tops of his shoulders.

His taught spinal cord contorts, stressed muscles bunching together in a haze of rifled motions. He eases the boy with a placating hush, pulling the rope tighter until the luscious sounds of bones dislocating from their joints and tendons snapping fill his ears. The noise sends a zing of pleasure from the base of his spine to the tips of his fingers.

A choked-up mewling tears from the constricted lips of the boy, and his head shakes fervently as if to beg, “no more! No more!”

The boy writhes and screams through the gag until his vocal chords sound as ripped as his joints and muscles. 

His shoulders are pulled so far back they’re in line with his hoisted wrists, which dangle mere inches above his head. His fingers tremble with exertion, as do his chest and ribcage. 

He looks downward into wet eyes which blink up at him owlishly, wide and glistening behind long, darkened lashes.

Tears take a moment to run freely down the patterns of his cheeks, following the jutting ridges and hollowed dips. Despite all the screams, all the popped joints and ruined muscles, that fire never leaves his eyes, and it is absolutely breath-taking.

None of his boys have ever lasted this long before.

And although he dangles, limp and panting through the pain, body lax and bendable beneath his ropes, he holds on to determinedly struggle against him at every corner they turn.

Those golden-olive eyes glare at him weakly with as much malice as the poor boy can manage – which is a fair amount considering the several days he’s spent holed up in this cellar, scared, dehydrated, malnourished, and tied in inflexible positions.

The boy’s resilience is demonstrated powerfully in his elegance and fragility. 

Thirty-eight boys before him, and none of them had provided this gorgeous, alluring reverence in the face of certain death.

“I like your fiery disobedience, boy. It’s pretty.” He states simply.

Something about the statement must rock to the boy’s very core, because he’s thoughtless enough to begin struggling again, only succeeding in tearing more muscle, damaging further joints and likely breaking his shoulders beyond repair.

Eventually, after a final, sickeningly enticing pop, the boy’s light fades out like a candle, flickering as he sends himself into unconsciousness.

_Poor thing,_ he thinks. He almost regrets having to kill him for the masterpiece. He would’ve made such a lovely companion, with all that flame and disobedience. Breaking his spirit will be more fun than any of the prior thirty-eight.

He has worked over this boy enough in the past several days, what he’s rejected has been the fluids that keep him lively through death. The embalming equipment, just like what his grandfather used to teach him over winter break.

One can keep a body so pristine and lifelike for weeks, months even, if you were skilled enough. And by now, he most certainly was.

What’s another hour for prep before the final blows?

Not much, especially when it came to this final work of art, his last boy.

\----

After almost eight knocks and no answer, Derek finally disregards Hotch’s orders to _wait for an answer_.

“For fuck’s sake, he could be _hurting_ him right now,” he hisses into the wire.

The kitchen is empty save for a bowl holding multiple rotting fruits.

_The subject likely has an obsessive interest that causes lack of care or proper investment in other aspects of his life, such as cleanliness, work, family or socialising._

Footsteps ascend from somewhere below the kitchen, and suddenly Derek is face-to-face with another man.

He’s white, stocky, short but well-toned for a middle-aged man. He cocks his head to the side, looking carefully at his visitor.

_He is not outwardly aggressive, he maintains his emotions well, possibly placid in most conversations. His demeanor is only altered when his obsession is brought into question._

There’s a gleam in his eyes that makes Derek feel as though something is not quite _right_ with him. Even on the street he would notice this unhinged look, something darker lurking beneath the surface.

_“Morgan,”_ Hotch prompts.

“Ugh,” he clears his throat, straightening himself and staring the other man down. “I heard word of a – uh, of something you were creating. A work of art, of some sort. I’m here to review it, if possible.”

The man eyes him carefully, surveying him with a clearly altered state of mind, and hopefully his delusion is thick enough to stop him from recognising signs of an ambush.

“I haven’t finished,” the man says. Derek hears Hotch prompting him again, though he only opens his mouth to follow direction when the man speaks again. “Although feedback would be appreciated. I need a pair of educated eyes.”

A grin which Derek finds nauseating spreads across the man’s face, and he gestures for Derek to follow him down the flight of stairs which is assumingly – hopefully – where Spencer is being held.

The room is dim, but not enough to cover the silhouette that Derek only takes a moment to register.

He knows his goal was to distract until the team could make their way in with sufficient evidence, but the sight of him – of Spence, of his partner – was far too much to ignore or simply brush over.

He’s awake but barely, his eyes sway back and forth unsurely, like he’s taking more than a moment to make out who the new figure in the room is. His head doesn’t lift from his chest where he hangs at half the height of the room, wrists black and blue like those on the autopsy photographs. His shoulders are a mess, twisted at angles they shouldn’t be, puffy with mistreatment and purpling from poor blood flow. His listless fingers fumble against each other as he groans, blinking sluggishly and twitching with the effort of staying conscious.

His frame is almost more skeletal than Derek remembers, though he tries to tell himself it’s just a mere projection of his worry, Spencer’s only been gone two thirds of a week, he couldn’t have lost much body mass since then.

There’s a heavy blanket draped across the opposite wall of the cellar and although he’s busy pressing closer to Spencer’s proximity, the sight of the wall beneath the covering makes bile rise in his throat with enough strength to halt him in his steps.

Tens of bodies are stacked against and atop each other, each a different shade of bruises. Almost every limb in sight is twisted and hanging at angles that… should not be humanly possible, even with dislocation and shattered sockets.

“Oh - oh my God.”

“You like them then, I take it?” 

He had hoped the effort he exerted would be properly attested to. It took hours to drain a body of blood, to pump them full of embalming fluids and various germ-destroying, rot-preventing chemicals without leaving visible markings. It was necessary, but he had always hated the way that last hint of _life_ had faded from his boys’ eyes as they fluttered shut for the last time.

He had been dreading doing the same for this boy, his perfect finale.

He leaves his admirer to the side, surveying his unfinished masterpiece as he laces a hand against the length of rope and eases it slightly higher.

“What the hell… what the fuck is this?” The man whispers, aghast. “You – you’re _killing_ him!” Derek chokes on his disgust, lashing out and ignoring the surprised grunt as their unsub hits the floor, far more concentrated on Spencer.

Spencer, whose ring finger is trembling, what little light there is catching on his small ring, flashing against the walls of the cellar. 

“I got you, I have you,” he tries, reaching one arm beneath his chest to take the weight off his slowly darkening hands.

Footsteps descend and Derek pays them no mind, focused entirely on the noises Spencer is making as Hotch joins Derek’s side and slowly – oh so slowly – lowers him down to the floor where Derek lets him down with a gentle hand.

Spencer flushes white as he’s pulled forward against Derek’s chest, his shoulders dangling oddly from their sockets as he sobs weakly into his fiance’s chest over the screams of “ _put him **back!** I wasn’t finished! I can **finish** it! Leave him be! My boy! My **work!**_ ”

“You’re okay, I promise. I’ve got you. _He’s gone_. It’s okay. It’s going to be alright.” Derek runs a hand over Spencer’s temples, pushing his sweat-soaked curls back from his forehead with a light touch. “ER and then back home, yeah? No more of this,” he promises. “You’re alright, ‘m here, kid.”

**Author's Note:**

> Tumblr is [@ag-ib](https://ag-ib.tumblr.com/)
> 
> my heart goes <3<3<3 when anyone sends asks


End file.
